It has become very common for children to have their own mobile computing devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. It is desirable that parents be able to supervise their children's use of computers in general and mobile devices specifically. Online safety is an ever present concern for parents, with common threats regarding Internet safety including cyber bullying, obscene and offensive content, pornography, hateful messages, and sexual predators or thieves luring children to unsafe locations. Children are naturally curious and may not always know when an online situation is unsafe. Fortunately, parental control software exists which allows the monitoring, filtering and blocking of content and apps that children attempt to download, view or otherwise access.
Parents would like to be able to allow their children to move about safely within approved locations (their own yards, neighborhoods, schools, friend's houses, etc.), while ensuring that they avoid prohibited or dangerous areas, and comply with specified time parameters or other condition (get to school on time, study at the library for at least two hours, be home by 8:00 PM, etc.).
Mobile operating systems, such as Apple Inc.'s iOS®, sometimes limit a mobile app's access to system level functionality. For example, Apple has severe restrictions under iOS® for allowing apps to run in the background, in an effort to improve user experience and extend battery life. Only special classes of apps approved by Apple are allowed to run the background, such as registered navigation apps which are allowed to receive location updates, or registered streaming apps (e.g., music players), which are allowed to download content from a server. Under iOS® other general-purpose applications are typically not allowed to keep running in the background, but instead are stopped or suspended when not in the foreground. Other mobile operating systems may have similar permission issues.
Thus, tracking a child's location continuously on mobile operating systems such as iOS® presents issues. For example, under iOS® a general purpose parental control app is limited by the mobile operating system from receiving location updates continuously. Because the parental control app typically would be classified as a general-purpose application, the mobile app would in general only be allowed to run in the foreground. When the mobile app is not being used actively, it will be suspended or terminated in due course. When suspended or terminated, the mobile app will be unable to obtain the current location of the mobile device or changes thereto from the mobile operating system. When the mobile app is terminated or suspended, the mobile app will be unable to continue tracking the location of the child by receiving continuous location updates.
It would be desirable to address these issues.